DSM diagnosis: Unloveable-ness with a tendency towards self-loathing. Prognosis: Lame.

I want to be a story worth writing about. To live each day and say "wow, that was awesome, someone should write that down." But then the next morning comes, and I don't want to leave my apartment, let alone do any of the random things that might make a day memorable-like singing at the top of my longs in a public place, or,  asking someone on a date. Hell,  I felt embarrassed making eye contact with a relatively cute guy in the grocery store. My most memorable moment today? Eating cookies. Cookies I would not usually eat. Unfortunately for my stone-cold heart, they beat out my dinner conversation with friends (thinking about the food), and my futile familial call (my attempt at connection and loving relatedness left me confronted with a cold and shivering heart when I got of the phone).

"A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Life" by David Miller is excellent. However in currently not living a better life, I feel a little bit lame as I reread it. Shaming myself with lameness is not usually an effective antidote to my already large dose of lame, but when I get perspective on it, it is at least slightly comedic.

My dad's words of wisdom tonight were"get up, dress up, and show up, that's like, 80% of it." It's like I'm dressing up for meaninglessness every day. Changing out of my pajamas and some piece of clothing I feel relatively comfortable in to go out in the world and... stare at people and wonder why they walk around in their lives. The most meaning I've been able to find is in my trips to the grocery store, because I MUST eat green apples with cashews (or if I run out of whatever concoction I have imagined, it will quickly be replaced with anything within arm's reach), otherwise I simply WON'T be ok. Ok, so there is meaning in consumption, and not having cold toes. If I was completely numb I wouldn't be so concerned about having cold extremities-at least I still have some survival instinct intact.

But it's all so pathetically boring, which is what makes it even more depressing. I have no children, I am not in severe debt, I'm not overweight, I don't have cancer. And there is a world with many more significant crises beyond my cross-eyed dilemna.  I'm stuck, and I suffer from an acute case of self-loathing and unloveable-ness (yes unloveable-ness is a psychiatric disorder, look it up in the DSM biatches).

I'm not committed to this lame story. Part of it shifts when I stop correlating the quality of my day with whether or not I'm happy and satisfied by what I ate (because that rarely, if ever happens). But that does happen when I'm involved in things that provide way more meaning than whatever it is I may be consuming. So that's the mission: do something, ANYTHING, that makes me excited and trumps my concerns about cold toes, iron hearts, and lunch time.

I want to be the bestest.

Jealousy. I hate t o admit that part of me is happy when other people f*** up. I want to be the best. I want to be miss america. There really is no such thing as the BEST in the world. Every year there is a new Miss Universe, but we have no idea if there is some woman in rural Peru who actually meets every cultural aesthetic imaginable, or an eskimo who could put every Frank Sinatra, Whitney Huston and Maria Callas to shame. 

But there really is no such thing, because everyone has different ears and eyes and feelings and thoughts. So this whole "best" s a lot of bull.  But still I want to be the best. 

Design to be alive

When is it we stopped designing things to make people feel alive?

I live in a room where I cannot see the sky.

I work in an office with no windows.

I walk outside and the buildings are so close, there’s little difference between a sunny and a cloudy day. 

The water I drink from the faucet meets the minimum drinking requirements.

The chair I sit on is a chair. There’s little consideration for the alignment of my body

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I live in an artificially lit environment 23 out of the 24 hours of any one day (even the street lights invade my room at night).

Gaudi's Sagrada Famila, Barcelona

When did we stop considering any kind of quality of life, and think merely in terms of quantity? Why don’t we create worlds of inspiration, greenery, treasure troves of humanity and life? We live longer and longer, but without inspiration, simply with functionality. I don’t just want to just function, I want to be alive.